What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

The Witch is all about atmosphere and being stuck in that log cabin with them, or stuck in the woods. You gotta have all lights off and the sound way up. I think it's really meant to be seen in the movie theatre.

I'm not sure I 'got it' either to be honest, but I was still insanely creeped out and didn't feel well during the movie. That's a pretty damn successful scary movie by that metric.

Count Orlok wrote: [Edit: Cancel that, no one wants to read complaining]

I watched the Scorsese remake of Cape Fear, which was slightly surreal having only ever seen the Simpson's take on it. It was interesting to see him try his hand at Hitchcock, but it all felt a bit too arch to really work as its own artistic achievement. There are some great tense moments, but it was weighed down with camp.

The original Cape Fear is not by Hitchcock.

the creepiest part of the Cape Fear remake is thinking of what might be going through Quentin Tarantino's mind when he watched that scene where a very young Juliette Lewis gets kissed by Robert Deniro

Perhaps I was unclear. Scorsese's remake was his attempt at homage to Hitchcock (the Saul Bass credit sequence, and many other stylistic touches), despite the original not being a Hitchcock film, although obviously more overt in its grotesqueness than allowable by the time.

Black Barney wrote: The Witch is all about atmosphere and being stuck in that log cabin with them, or stuck in the woods. You gotta have all lights off and the sound way up. I think it's really meant to be seen in the movie theatre.

I'm not sure I 'got it' either to be honest, but I was still insanely creeped out and didn't feel well during the movie. That's a pretty damn successful scary movie by that metric.

The music was having a disturbing effect on us - how's that for effective.

Mr. White wrote: Watched The Witch last night with the wife.

I was all geared up to be terrified...but was over sold. I guess I didn't 'get it'. It was disturbing for sure, but for some reason I thought it was gonna be a horrifying experience that would be hard to watch. Maybe I would have felt better about it had I not had any sort of hype or expectation.

If you were expecting to be terrified or jump out of your seat then you must not have read a single comment on this website about it. I think pretty much everyone agreed it wasn't scary or even a traditional horror movie. As Barney said, its all about atmosphere and story.

Mad Dog wrote:

Mr. White wrote: Watched The Witch last night with the wife.

I was all geared up to be terrified...but was over sold. I guess I didn't 'get it'. It was disturbing for sure, but for some reason I thought it was gonna be a horrifying experience that would be hard to watch. Maybe I would have felt better about it had I not had any sort of hype or expectation.

If you were expecting to be terrified or jump out of your seat then you must not have read a single comment on this website about it. I think pretty much everyone agreed it wasn't scary or even a traditional horror movie. As Barney said, its all about atmosphere and story.

I guess I didn't recall too much. The only thing I remember reading recently was that one F:ATtie turned it off every 20mins or so because they were creeped out.

Maybe I missed sarcasm in that post?

That was Jeb. I suppose the baby scene was behind this.

That baby scene was...difficult

It sure was.

I got around to watching The Babadook tonight. I ignored it in the past, because the very title annoyed me. I could tell just from the word that this horror movie was going to have a significant kid element, and possibly also have a goofy monster. But what little I did hear about the movie was all positive, so I gave it a shot.

The Babadook deserves respect. The two most important characters were both talented and particularly suited to their roles, including the little boy. The movie didn't have a large budget, but they accomplished a lot with limited resources and made a good movie. The story seems original, though I eventually picked up on some strong and obvious influences: . The story is good, the music is good, the cinematography is solid. There is nothing wrong with The Babadook, and most horror fans will probably enjoy it.

However, I personally did not enjoy The Babadook. Although I was a kid once, and have nothing against kids, I never got around to having any of my own. And for most of my adult life, I have not often been around kids for any extended period of time. So while the plight of the single mother is definitely examined with a sympathetic eye in The Babadook, I had struggle to tolerate the boy in this movie. There are character and story reasons for the kid being more than a handful, and the part was played well, I just got really sick of his antics early on, and suffered through many of his scenes. After fifteen minutes, I was contemplating getting a vasectomy, and by the thirty minute mark, I was really hoping that this Babadook would hurry up and kill the kid. Forty-five minutes into the movie, I anticipated where it was headed, and it was an interesting direction. Fortunately, there were some surprises and the ending was not what I expected. I'm glad that I watched The Babadook, but I don't know if I want to ever watch it again.

Over the weekend I watched a couple of films. Doctor Strange is one of the better Marvel films (for me I would put it in the top 5 with Iron Man 1, Guardians, Avengers 1 and Winter Soldier). It does tread that same path, feeling very similar to Iron Man 1 and Ant Man, but it does it well enough that it is enjoyable in its own right. It is interesting as while I have generally liked the films of the Marvel characters I liked (Iron Man, Ant Man) and been less warm on the films of my less liked characters (Cap, Thor), I never particularly liked Doctor Strange in the comics, as the magic felt incongruous with the rest of the Marvel Universe, but I do like the film.

Last night I watched What We Do In the Shadows the New Zealand mockumentary about vampires sharing a house in Wellington. It is one of those films that I have had on my radar for a while, recommended by many people, but never had gotten around to watching. It did live up to the hype and was a lot of fun. It also reminds me how much I love Rhys Darby, in that he comes across as one of the most memorable characters even though he has such a limited amount of screen time (few other actors could turn "We're werewolves, not swear-wolves" into such a memorable line).

Shadows is great, and MuMu, you'll be happy to hear that the sequel is titled "We're Wolves" and will focus more on Darby and the wolf pack.

I can't get enough of Darby. Sounds awesome

I watched Alice Through the Looking Glass and Now you See Me 2.

Apparently the family was in the mood for studio driven bad treatments to try to milk a modestly succesful initial offering. Alice was at least visually fun.

Now You See Me 2 was so poorly written. I liked the original film enough. It was a decent "heist" film, a la Ocean Eleven. I think they should have left it alone...there was just enough hamhanded mystique...then the sequel does too much explaining. The reveal was very unsatisfying. The plot was lifted from the structure that Disney has been taking strait to video for years : Team/Family from the first film question each others loyalty/motives - get set at odds and split apart - Come together and appreciate each other after everything goes to pot - Leader dude finds something about himself and his team realizes he's the guy they can trust and they reconcile and pull off big win with new appreciation for each other.